Maharashtra Assembly Floor Test: Speaker allows Opposition demand for division of vote

Mumbai: Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Rahul Narvekar on Monday allowed the demand of the Opposition and began the division of votes in the trust vote.

The trust vote was proposed by BJP's Sudhir Mungantiwar and Shiv Sena's Bharat Gogawale. After a voice vote, on proposal of trust vote, opposition members demanded a division of vote.
the Speaker allowed the demand and begins the division of votes, asked members to stand for head count.

Meanwhile, two MLA of the Uddhav Thackeray faction, Santosh Bangar and Shyamsundar Shinde, joined the Eknath Shinde camp just before the trust vote.

So, since yesterday two Shiv Sena MLAs have switched sides.
Shiv Sena's Aaditya Thackeray arrived in the House just minutes before the doors were locked for a head count.
Ahead of the proceedings, exuding confidence of winning the Maharashtra floor test Union Minister and BJP leader Raosaheb Patil Danve said, "Today is the day of the final test for the Eknath Shinde government of Maharashtra. We will 100 per cent win the Maharashtra floor test."

At present, the BJP has 106 MLAs in the 288-member Maharashtra Assembly and Shinde is leading 39 rebel Shiv Sena legislators and some Independents. After the death of a Shiv Sena MLA recently, the current strength of the Assembly is reduced to 287, thus the majority mark is 144.

Shinde-led camp and the BJP scored a big win on Sunday as BJP's Rahul Narwekar was elected as the Speaker of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly defeating Shiv Sena candidate Rajan Salvi.

Interestingly, amid the ongoing battle between two Shiv Sena factions led by Eknath Shinde and Uddhav Thackeray, both sides issued separate whips to the party MLAs to vote in favour of their respective candidates during the speaker's election on Sunday and later accused each other of violating them.

Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant, who is in the Uddhav Thackeray camp, said that 39 party MLAs did not obey their whip adding that they have sought their disqualification from the state Assembly. (ANI)